


'Tis Eventide

by Kyntha



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Character Death Fix, Established Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Immortality, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love, Multi, Original Character Death(s), Rape/Non-con Elements, Spoilers, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:15:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyntha/pseuds/Kyntha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his last day, The Face of Boe reflects on his life and the people who meant the most to him. Or Gridlock from The Face of Boe's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Tis Eventide

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for Doctor Who series episodes: Gridlock (s3e3), The Parting of the Ways (s1e13), Utopia (s3e11), and the River Song story Arc. Minor spoilers for Doctor Who series episodes: for The End of the World (s1e2), The Doctor Dances (s1e10), The Poison Sky (s4e5), The Stolen Earth and Journeys End (s4e12&13), The End of Time (s4special), The Last of the Time Lords (s3e12&13), The Eleventh Hour (s5e1). Spoilers for Torchwood episodes: Fragments (s2e12) and Children of the Earth (s3e4). Apologies if I missed one. Pretty much if a Doctor Who episode had Jack Harkness in it, there’s probably at least a minor spoiler. I basically ignore New Earth (s2e2) because I just couldn’t make it work.
> 
> This, of course, plays on nearly everyone’s head cannon that Jack Harkness and The Face of Boe are the same person. Also plays on a few other head cannons I’ve seen around, as well as a couple of mine.
> 
> It's a little rambly and stream of consciousness until the end. It was meant to be.
> 
> The Christian hymn Abide with Me is the song sung by the people of New Earth at the end of the episode, Gridlock.

The end was near. He could feel it. Not even the life-force Rose had given him billions of years ago could sustain running the motorway and the undercity much longer. Not long enough for the 100 year quarantine to be lifted. He had been told when he would finally die, he didn't know it would be while trying to save the lives of millions of people trapped on the motorway. If the Doctor didn't get here soon, though, he would lose this battle. He couldn't face dying that way. Dying for naught.

The Face of Boe closed his eyes again and made another attempt at contacting the TARDIS. He’d discovered long ago, when he was still Captain Jack Harkness there was a link between him and the Doctor’s blue box. She’d hated him at first. Run from him. But after The Year That Never Was when she saw him die a thousand deaths out of love for the Doctor, she accepted their link. He had been born out of her life force after all.

He could feel the TARDIS from time to time when she and the Doctor flew too close to the rift. He heard her song within. He felt a tingle, a nudge, a note from her occasionally if something of importance or interest occurred. It was the TARDIS who told him told him to gather his team in lockdown in the Torchwood Hub when Sontorans tried to gas the earth. It was the TARDIS who nudged him toward a falling star diamond hoping he would find it before the Master. It was even the TARDIS who told him to build a time lock into the security systems of the Hub so he could protect Gwen and.... No. He couldn't dwell on those memories.

It took Jack centuries before he learned how to communicate in turn with the TARDIS. Indeed, he had been too busy running, too busy mourning, and too busy making love to spend time honing telepathy skills.

But now he needed her and her Doctor. He sighed. Too much of his energy was spent powering the city. He struggled to find enough energy to connect with the TARDIS telepathically. He’d been trying for 23 years. A moment for him. A generation for the city below.

Novice Hame fretted at his sigh. “Are you alright, sir?” she asked in her even steady voice. Faithful, repentant Novice Hame. Millennia ago Jack would have bedded her just for the conquest. Now The Face of Boe merely comforted in her voice, grateful for the company. After he’d lost his body to the monks, he’d spent too long as a head on a shelf. He’d had the money, like Maldovar who betrayed him, to live comfortably in the catacombs. He refused to give any of it to the monks. 

Instead he spent too long in quiet darkness, interrupted only for a Cleric of the catacombs to rape his mouth with their heavy, thick cocks - a regular occurrence. The painful thing about their abuse was, even bodiless, he'd have consented to their sexual cravings if they had just asked. Most of the guardians were attractive and desirable. All were cruel, though, and preferred to take instead of ask.

After accepting his fate, he began trying to hone his telepathic skills. He continued to hear the TARDIS call out to him, but he couldn't call back in return. Each time she sent him a nudge, he sent messages back. "Help me," at first. "Protect the Doctor," later. And finally what got through was a song. Not any song. Moonlight Serenade. The song he'd danced with Rose and the Doctor to.

Oh the times he and Rose and his Doctor had in that sexy blue box! He hummed Moonlight Serenade as he thought of the first night he spent with Rose and the Doctor. Rose was all softness and smiles and glances under heavy eyelashes. She danced between Jack and the Doctor all night. Allowing them to pass her back and forth. She even stepped back late in the evening to rest and encouraged the Doctor to dance with Jack. In the end not even the Doctor could resist Jack's 51st century pheromones or deny his own delighted mood. The three of them traveled, and ran, and danced for months, happy together in the TARDIS. He’d thanked Rose for her gift and forgiven the Doctor for his betrayal long ago.

After he made the connection to the TARDIS, telepathy became easier. It was now he who nudged the TARDIS. He sent her to find Donna. Brilliant, fiery, logical Donna who didn’t take guff from anyone, even the Doctor. He steered the TARDIS towards cracks in the universe. (Was it his fault the Doctor missed by 12 years?) He even pushed the TARDIS toward Amy and Rory’s granddaughter Clara, who was born to save the Doctor. He guided and nudged and pushed because he knew these things needed to happen. He knew because he’d already seen them, and he wasn’t entirely sure the Doctor was always in a space to allow them to happen on his own. And to be perfectly honest with himself, he did it because it gave him something to do.

It was there in the catacombs he took back the name The Face of Boe. The guardians laughed and joked about The Face when they thought he was asleep. "See if The Face will get you off! I heard he was quite the lover when he had a body too." they'd tease each other. They didn't know how close they were to the truth about his name. His first adult name.

The Face of Boe wondered briefly whatever became of his body. He hated the idea of the monks using his body in such a mindless disregard for life. He hoped the Clerics had killed it at Demons Run when the Doctor tricked them into firing on the monks while rescuing Amy and Melody Pond.

Ahhhhhh....Melody Pond. River Song. Now there was a woman. Bold. Brash. Courageous. Loyal. Sensual. The Doctor would call her hell in high heels. Oh but, was she! He’d never had anyone like River Song. She was almost as insatiable as Jack. He spent an entire month recovering from the days in the TARDIS he spent with River and her Doctor. He could hear the Doctor's voice deepen to a husky growl as he exclaimed, "you naughty, naughty girl" while River had her legs wrapped around Jack's head.

The one thing that concerned him while he was with River and the Doctor was why River had his Time Vortex Manipulator. Jack knew it was his. He’d chipped a notched into the band while he was traveling with John Hart as they were always getting each other’s confused. Since they were the same, he made an effort to ensure they never touched. The paradox, even in the TARDIS, could be too great.

Novice Hame was quietly singing an old Earth tune as she fretted around him and monitored controls. "What are you humming, Hame?"

"I believe it's called Abide With Me." She responded quietly. "Its one of the daily tunes we send down to the people on the motorway."

The Face of Boe had never been especially religious, but that tune he knew well. That tune...no, not yet. He could not let his mind wander there yet. Not to the moment most painful in his long life. Dredging up that pain now would not help him find the Doctor.

Hame said. "But I can sing another if you would prefer."

"Yes, please. I can't bear that one today." he asked.

She responded by humming an old Scottish folk song called Skye Boat Song. He didn't remember, but she had claimed once he taught her the song when they first met 50 years before. It was an oddly appropriate in this moment. "Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on a wing. Onward, the sailors cry."

The blue box flying through all time and space appeared in his mind once more. He wandered her halls, stroking coral with roughened fingertips. He fiddled with knobs and buttons on her control panel. He listened to slight whirring and whistling noises. The worn jumpseat that seated 3 perfectly felt extra springy today. He could smell Rose, the soft scent of vanilla and lavender of her soap, and his Doctor’s contrasting scent of leather and hay.

The Face of Boe recalled the day all of the Doctor's friends assembled in the console room flying the TARDIS and the Earth back to its rightful orbit. What a beautiful, magical flight that had been. The Doctor, his meta-crisis, Rose, her mother, Mickey, Sarah Jane, Donna, Martha, and himself all working together. They had saved worlds that day. It was a beautiful, beautiful sight. One of the best days of his life. He wanted that moment to never end. The look on the Doctor's face when he saw all these people who loved him, who sacrificed themselves for him, who literally broke through the laws of physics to find him all working together because they believed in him. Believed he was making the universe a better place. 

He wondered where Martha was now. She and Mickey were among the few people Jack had been able to keep in contact with for more than 75 years. Due to Martha's work with UNIT, she had acquired time vortex manipulators. She and Mickey eventually married and spent their honeymoon fighting off Sontarans on distant worlds.

Mickey. He was one lucky SOB. The Doctor's influence changed Mickey from a timid, whiney, skinny kid to a buff, bad ass who'd drop a Sontoran in a second...and had. Hell, Jack had seen Mickey look a Dalek straight in the eye stalk and pull the trigger without blinking on the biggest gun Jack had ever seen. Had to admire balls like that.

Jack tried many times to seduce Martha (and Mickey too), but she would have none of that. “I’m engaged (or married)!” she’d exclaim wagging a banded finger at him. She did kiss him once, deep and hard with his whole Torchwood team standing around him. “Just to see what I’m missing.” she teased. She was a one man woman. He had to admire her for her conviction.

It was Martha who told him he would die...and when. She, Mickey, and Jack were sitting in a bar on the Moon of Poosh, no longer lost, drinking some truly awful ale. Regardless of the dreadfulness of the ale, they'd had plenty of it. One of the dangers of time travel was meeting people in the wrong order or revealing tidbits about future events one shouldn't.

The three were reminiscing about their travels with the Doctor. When Martha mused "One thing I can't figure out is how Dr. Yana, the Master, knew to use that name."

"What do you mean?" Jack asked.

She had either forgotten he once told her what the people of Boeshane Peninsula called him or she didn’t think it mattered. "Yana...stands for 'You are not alone,' doesn't it? How did he know to use the acronym for his name. I mean The Face of Boe told the Doctor in his dying breath those exact words in the year 5 billion and something. I know. I was there."

And so The Face of Boe knew the final secret he would tell the Doctor would be "You are not alone," - code for Dr. Yana. He knew because he'd already done it. He had had generations upon generations to work out a message to warn the Doctor. And, he always supposed, to comfort him as well. It was the best message he could give, yet the Doctor still took too long to work it out. The Face of Boe knew that because Jack had been there, dying again to save the human race.

A rare moment of anger flashed through him. "Damn you, Doctor!" Novice Hame jumped at his outburst. "I was better off before I had a conscience! Before you made me want to be a better person!"

"I'm sorry, Hame," he muttered upon seeing her distress. "I love him, you know. More than anyone else except..."

The Face of Boe cleared his throat. No. Back to his meditation. Martha was supposed to come so he knew which Doctor would be with her. He was glad really, it would be him. River's Doctor was too clumsy and silly. Oh he'd save the city alright, but The Face of Boe had no patience for the clumsy theatrics that would go along with it. 

His Doctor...and Rose, how he'd love to see them again! But he knew that was not to be. Instead he'd arranged a little viewing party 53 years ago to see the last day of Earth before it exploded. Nudging the TARDIS his direction was easy. There was the Doctor showing off. Smugly breathing on everyone as his gift. And Rose, still timid at the vastness of the universe and its possibilities. The Face of Boe had wanted to see the last day of Earth. Had wanted to use the opportunity to say a final goodbye to his Doctor and Rose, but also to everyone left behind on Earth. Donna, Martha and Mickey, Gwen and Rhys, Owen, Tosh, Sarah Jane, his daughter and grandson, Ianto...

No. Not Ianto. Not yet. The Face of Boe could not afford to dwell on him yet. Not the person he loved above all others. He had only been with Ianto for a moment, a whisper, a blink in time. It was long enough. Steadfast. Loyal to a fault. Eager to please. Proper. Damn good with a gun...and his tongue.

The Face of Boe sobbed. "Ianto..."

And then he heard it. He heard the TARDIS in his mind. Landing. In the under city near the motorway.

"He's here! Go. Find him before it's too late!" Novice Hame transported quickly.

The Face of Boe closed his eyes in relief, now allowing himself now to picture Ianto in his mind. He chuckled. Suddenly what he wouldn’t give for a cup of Ianto’s coffee. Billions and billions of years, and now he thought of coffee. He remembered Ianto’s determination when Ianto had asked repeatedly for a job. Stopping each morning outside the tourist office - the back door of the Hub - to greet Jack with a coffee. Sometimes Jack would pause long enough to yell at him to go away. Sometimes Jack even accepted the coffee. Sometimes Jack brushed past him without a word. Ianto always made a comment about the coat. Truth was, Jack wanted Ianto from the moment Ianto saved him from the Weevil. And he was pretty sure he fell in love with him the night they captured Myfawny. 

Darkness was closing in. The same darkness he experienced every time he died. This time would be no different. Except he wouldn’t come back from this one. There would be no sudden gasp of breath that brought him back to life again. His life force would be drained completely on this passing. The Face of Boe struggled to continue picturing Ianto. It wasn’t time to go yet.

The Doctor was here, angry and yelling at Hame about needed to get Martha back. Good. The Doctor would help no matter the circumstances, but that he and Martha were separated would make him work faster. The Doctor would save whole worlds to rescue one of his companions. Hame was explaining the virus in her calm, firm voice. The Face of Boe climbed out of the darkness to greet him. “Doctor!”

And then there he was. His old friend, one last time, smiling at him. Stroking the glass as though he knew who The Face of Bo really was. Perhaps deep down the Doctor did know. They both had seen so much. Knew so much. He summoned enough energy to talk to the Doctor for a few moments before they got to the business of saving the city. Saving Martha.

“Doctor, my lifetime is drawing to a close. Please, I ask you to do something for me.”

The Doctor, who always hated good-byes was predictable. He refused to accept The Face of Bo might be dying. “We’ll have none of that, now.”

“Doctor,” The Face of Boe insisted, “There is a boy in early 21st century Cardiff named Ianto Jones. Look after him for me. Help him with his homework from time to time. Just keep him safe.” He remembered how he used to look after Rose as a young girl, tempted to help her with her homework.

"No one is dying today today!" the Doctor exclaimed. "First up, let's get Martha out of there." He and Hame turned to the controls working together to divert more energy to the under city. The Face of Boe smiled quietly watching his old lover work. The Doctor's face furrowed in concentration, flipping switches, sonicing buttons back to life, splicing wires. He was obviously enjoying himself, even while worried about Martha.

Their work was pulling more energy from his life force, but The Face of Boe reminded silent. He knew the Doctor would never allow their work if he understood it was killing another being. Instead The Face of Boe closed his eyes again and pondered the final darkness. He never believed there would be anything at the end of his life. Darkness and finality were all he expected. Was he right?

Novice Hame had told him once the people on New Earth believed when one died, a multitude of singing doves greeted the person. “What are they singing?” he’d asked.

“The song that means the most to that person.” Novice Hame replied in her quiet voice.

That song to him was the one Hame had been humming earlier - an ancient Earth hymn, Abide with Me. It was a hymn that had stuck with him most of his life on earth.

_Abide with me; 'tis eventide._  
The day is past and gone;  
The shadows of the evening fall;  
The night is coming on.  
Within my heart a welcome guest,  
Within my home abide.

When he sent Gwen and Rhys home to Cardiff with Ianto’s body Jack had requested that hymn be played at Ianto’s funeral. He never knew if Rhiannon agreed to the request, but when he allowed thought of lifeless Ianto lying in the gymnasium, this hymn echoed in his mind.

He heard the Doctor shout and opened his eyes to check on their progress. The Doctor had cobbled a generator to power the massive doors closing off the undercity and motorway from the upper city. He threw the switch gleefully only to find his generator fail. As he muttered over controls, The Face of Boe knew what must be done. Somehow in his heart, he knew his life would end not slowly draining his life force into the city, but draining it in one large surge. In the way he’d lived for so long. “Doctor...” he muttered before concentrating on sending every spark of life he had into the Doctor’s generator. 

“No, no, no...” The Doctor, finally understanding what was happening, insisted trying to shut down the power.

The smoke in the tank puffed and dissipated. The glass cracked. The Doctor shouted. Hame stood still in shock. Lights and exhaust vents and communication controls powered on. The Face of Boe felt his bodiless head slide from his tank onto the floor near the Doctor's feet. He took a deep breath of fresh air. It had been so long.

The Doctor, torn between saving one friend in front of him and another trapped below, finally chose Martha. The Face of Boe heard him as darkness closed in shout into the now live microphone controlling the communication systems "Drive up! Drive up! Everybody, just drive up!"

He heard celebration and deep relief from Hame and the Doctor. He allowed the darkness to swallow him. And then he heard the Doctor call through the comm system again, "Martha! Martha!" He couldn't go yet. His job wasn't complete. There was one last thing to do. "Drive up", the Doctor had said, and that's what The Face of Boe did too in his mind. He drove himself up out of the darkness, grasping for that last thread of life force. Holding on so he could tell his last secret.

The Doctor and Hame knelt beside him, the Doctor stroking his face quietly. His telepathic powers were nearly gone and so he lay equally quietly reserving the last of his energy and thinking of Ianto until he knew Martha was indeed safe. He wanted Ianto to be the last person he thought of. He struggled to keep the person he had loved more than anyone forefront in his mind. 

Martha was so quiet, so timid when she arrived. It was very early in their travels together. The Doctor called her to The Face of Boe where she stopped short. As the Doctor introduced her, The Face of Boe summoned the last of his energy to comfort his friends. “All things must come to an end.”

The Face of Boe heard the singing of thousands of voices.

_Abide with me; 'tis eventide._  
Thy walk today with me  
Has made my heart within me burn,  
As I communed with thee.  
Thy earnest words have filled my soul  
And kept me near thy side.

It was time. “Doctor,” he gasped air for spoken words. “You...are...not...alone.”

Darkness closed around him, covering him like a warm blanket. He welcomed it even has he heard Hame sob. 

And then...it was light. He was standing outside the Tourist Office - the back door to the Hub - in the bright morning sun. Jack looked down at himself wearing Gray wool trousers, a dark blue shirt, braces, and his wool military coat. He turned examining the scene. When he turned back to the waterfront again, a young man stood in front of him holding out a cup.

"Coffee, sir?"

"Yanno!" Jack reached for his lover, then stopped. "But where am I? Did I come back to life again?"

"No, sir. This is afterlife, heaven, the promised land, paradise. Whatever you wish to call it."

"Is that singing?" Jack asked..

Ianto listened. "Yes, I believe it is."

_Abide with me; 'tis eventide,_  
And lone will be the night  
If I cannot commune with thee  
Nor find in thee my light.  
The darkness of the world, I fear,  
Would in my home abide.

"I don't understand. I didn't expect..."

"It would seem heaven is what you would make it. You wanted heaven to be a reunion with all the people you've had to leave behind. And so they are here waiting for you."

"Everyone? Rose, Gwen, Owen, Martha?"

"Even your daughter, grandson...and the Doctor."

Jack mused for a moment. He then pulled Ianto into a deep kiss. "I've missed you so much, Yan. What shall we do first?" Then upon feeling a long flat packet in Ianto's breast pocket, he raised his eyebrows. "Myfanwy?"

"Oh, yes, sir. And three dozen of her kin." Ianto grinned, keeping Jack close.

"Well, then, Yanno, " Jack linked his arm with Ianto's. "Shall we go pterodactyl hunting?"

A wicked smiled spread across the Welshman's face. "I thought you'd never ask."

As they set off, Jack noted, "By the way that suit looks fantastic on you."

"Mmm..." Ianto purred, "And I do love the coat."


End file.
